Carbonite and Guild Positions

[orionshock]

No Feature Request / Sugestions forum, so general i guess will work.

@ Authors for Carbonite Addon:

It came up in wowace irc the other day about comms traffic and addons that spam alot. While it's known that carbonite does have alot of traffic, it was mentioned that there might be a way to cut down on some of it.

IIRC, Carbonite does tracking for guild members and shows a dot on the map for those that also have carbonite with in the guild. Great, however Carbonite uses it's own comms protocol to do so. There is however another solution that may work to everyone's advantage.

http://www.wowace.com/addons/libguildpositions-1-0/

Is a libary designed to do just that, to communicate where other guildies are. The display is left up to the using addon ofc. It is known that this Lib is quite stable and may be viable to use instead of the distinct method used by Carbonite. The advantages to using this lib is quite obvious, All addons that provide this feature can operate from a single source of information and don't all have to have a specific addon in order to have this feature in their UI

I understand that it might not be viable to adapt to use the new lib.
I know that you may already know about this and have declined it's use.

None the less, you do know till you ask, can't ask unless you post

[carboniteaddon]

A lot of time was spent on how Carbonite sends status messages to guild, friends and zone. The messages are tightly packed and sent at variable rates depending on what you are doing. A single small message to the guild channel at the maximum rate of 2.1 seconds is nowhere near what the network can handle. I do not consider it to be a problem.

What addons even frequently send your position that you would be using with Carbonite? Cartographer uses libguildpositions I think, but not many people would be using those two together.

[orionshock]

Originally Posted by carboniteaddon A lot of time was spent on how Carbonite sends status messages to guild, friends and zone. The messages are tightly packed and sent at variable rates depending on what you are doing. A single small message to the guild channel at the maximum rate of 2.1 seconds is nowhere near what the network can handle. I do not consider it to be a problem.

I will take your word and am greatful for it.

Originally Posted by carboniteaddon What addons even frequently send your position that you would be using with Carbonite? Cartographer uses libguildpositions I think, but not many people would be using those two together.

Not on the same client. Take this example, very real one too:

Given 4 groups of users in the same guild:
GroupA of users use Carbonite (using Carb's Protocol)
GroupB of users have Cartographer (with LGP's Protocol)
GroupC of users have a specific addon that just sends guild positions (using a different protocol)
GroupD of users have none of the above.

Where each group is sending status messages of location to the guild addon channel, none of the first 3 groups will be able to use each other's data with out a specific implementation of support with the posibility of causing conflicts or data corruption.

What LGP was created so that different addons from differnt clients (giving the end user the choice of what addon they liked to display the information) can work togeather for common information that is sent. Much like how the Threat-1x & 2x Libs where designed to where any addon could use the data and the user could decided where they wanteded it and what addon to use with out each of those addons doing their own / same thing.

Edit: To continue some of the proofs for this. HandyNotes_Guild Witch can be used with nearly any map addon. So the others in the guild can choose what addon they want for this perticular feature.

With LGP Carbonite can share it's data with the other members of the guild, conversely carbonite can then use the data from non-carbonite users for location data.

[gozirra]

It sounds good on paper.

Now what happens if, Bliz decides to change how addon chat channels work? Every addon that uses that library would be broke until the developer of that library updated it.

The way Carbonite's comms work, if Bliz decided to change how addon chat channels work, the Carb team can push out an update the same day to fix it, instead of waiting for a possibly non-existent library dev to get around to it.

Want an example? Ace. Sounds great on paper, but Ace is no longer developed (in fact, theres Ace2 and Ace3 teams with competing libraries).

[orionshock]

Originally Posted by gozirra It sounds good on paper. Now what happens if, Bliz decides to change how addon chat channels work?

Not likely to happen, but possible that blizzard may.

Originally Posted by gozirra Every addon that uses that library would be broke until the developer of that library updated it.

But this is true with any addon. However, a good majority of developers, including the ones watching this Lib are on the PTRs nearly every time they go up to make sure that breaking is kept to a minimum.

Originally Posted by gozirra The way Carbonite's comms work, if Bliz decided to change how addon chat channels work, the Carb team can push out an update the same day to fix it, instead of waiting for a possibly non-existent library dev to get around to it. Want an example? Ace. Sounds great on paper, but Ace is no longer developed (in fact, theres Ace2 and Ace3 teams with competing libraries).

While it is a bad example, your point is well known and understood. However to correct you, Ace2 is no longer being developed iirc and has been grandfathered. Ace3 is the current evolution and has a rather active development staff for it.

Also the Lib has been around for quite a number of patches with no problems at all needing little if no code level maintenance from what i recall. The method used in LGP is rather simplistic in nature and was designed to be long lasting as well.



@carboniteaddon, realistically I'd just wanted to ask (*friendly and in a nice way*) if it would be viable & worthwhile for Carbonite to switch to this method, as it would benefit a wider number of users for this particular feature of the WorldMap that has been requested of blizzard for years now.

[Jigain]

Here's a thought. Would it not be possible to use both methods, alternatively add an option (as if we didn't have enough already! ) to switch between them?

[orionshock]

Originally Posted by Jigain Here's a thought. Would it not be possible to use both methods, alternatively add an option (as if we didn't have enough already! ) to switch between them?

True, easy enough to just install the lib separately, as it works just fine as standalone. But doing so would create more comms traffic than consolidate as that's what im aiming at.

[carboniteaddon]

A major problem is that Carbonite sends a variety of data in the status messages that LGP does not support. Health, target info, quest info, punks info. Carbonite also sends status to your friends, who are not in your guild by subdividing the same bandwidth, so even if in a guild and have 20 other friends online the system will not overload.

[orionshock]

Originally Posted by carboniteaddon A major problem is that Carbonite sends a variety of data in the status messages that LGP does not support. Health, target info, quest info, punks info. Carbonite also sends status to your friends, who are not in your guild by subdividing the same bandwidth, so even if in a guild and have 20 other friends online the system will not overload.

well good point. there was a plea from many several months ago in the hopes that it would be possible to get this data shared with LGP & carbonite & a few other addons that had their own methods.

Eh well. Thx for you time.

[carboniteaddon]

You can't look at 5 addons sending different data and say it is bad without proof. Does the frame rate noticeably decrease? Does the UI actually feel slower?

The big problem people make is assuming something is a problem without testing it. Benchmarks are key. I've written code at times and thought it would be slow, but then benchmarking proved otherwise.

[orionshock]

Originally Posted by carboniteaddon You can't look at 5 addons sending different data and say it is bad without proof.

Hehe.. well matter of perspective. From a coding standpoing, prolly not. From a collabrative standpoint it can be. The idea presented here and the point of LGP was to allow the various addons to work togeather instead of independntly. Stregnth in numbers idea.

Originally Posted by carboniteaddon Does the frame rate noticeably decrease? Does the UI actually feel slower? The big problem people make is assuming something is a problem without testing it. Benchmarks are key. I've written code at times and thought it would be slow, but then benchmarking proved otherwise.

Code Optimization isn't really the issue at all. It is the cooperative aspect I am persuing.


If you don't want to add it in, then say so. No loss for me. I figured I'd say something to make sure you where aware of it and as a point of reference for futher discussions on this topic.

[carboniteaddon]

We do not want Carbonite to be dependent on any other addons for basic functionality and the lack of the previously mentioned features are the reasons it is not acceptable to us.

The point about benchmarking was just a side note.

[orionshock]

Originally Posted by carboniteaddon We do not want Carbonite to be dependent on any other addons for basic functionality and the lack of the previously mentioned features are the reasons it is not acceptable to us.

Valid points.
Tho the next logical question would be, would an optional dependency be viable? While the lib is quite self contained and doesn't need to be run by a given addon, the lib could "fill in the gaps" in Carbonite's info on guild positions. This would provide more data to work with as I don't see everyone playing wow using Carbonite, then again not everyone uses LGP either.

Just another thing to consider.

[yoshimo]

I think orionshocks last question is a valid suggestion.

[carboniteaddon]

Carbonite already handles the messages sent by Cartographer and shows those players on the map. I believe Cartographer uses LGP???